Continuing in my series which examines how different businesses in the Human Resources sector acquire new clients, today we’re looking at a very interesting business that crosses the border between tech and consulting.

We’ll hear from David Godden about how he and the team at Thymometrics have been busy growing their innovative employee engagement company.

How To Get More HR Clients – Q&A With David Godden

During a very interesting business growth discussion, I asked David the following questions:

What does your business do?

Do you focus on a niche within the market or do you serve all businesses (if so, how do you try to stand-out from competitors)?

What are some effective ways you have acquired new clients?

Any ineffective ways to find new customers? Why didn’t they work so well?

Any tips on interesting people, websites, tools, podcasts, or books to check out?

Let’s get into it but, first, don’t forget to join my mailing list for more business marketing insights . . .

Bridging the divide between HR Tech and human emotions

Before David and I got to the HR marketing questions, I wondered out loud about the difficulties in bridging the divide between entirely rational HR technology and, well, variable human emotions . . .

David: Although Thymometrics is a software platform, we are fundamentally dealing with human beings and their feelings.

Employee emotion, sentiment, mood, satisfaction, disappointment, anger, well-being are all words we hear every day when in discussion with our clients about their employees. In the end Thymometrics is just a tool (a very good tool, I hasten to add!) that monitors, gauges and reports on people’s feelings, but this brings a human element into our business and how we go about developing our software.

Thymometrics’ raison d’être is to make things better in the workplace. If things are going well for some, ask them why so you can replicate this elsewhere. If things are going badly, you can at least identify these issues early and hopefully do something to acknowledge them or, better still, avert a crisis.

The great thing about improving employee engagement is it’s not just about having happier staff (great as this is). It’s all the ancillary benefits of higher productivity, increased staff retention, better customer service, an enhanced employer value proposition, a greatly improved open culture, employees who feel like they have their part in the business and act as entrepreneurs and, last but not least, a positive effect on the bottom line.

When you work in a business that is in touch with such positive human fundamentals, you can’t help but be excited by what you do.

Q1. What does your business do?

Thymometrics provides a new breed of tools to monitor the mood of a company’s workforce. For decades the way to do this has been by the antiquated and universally detested annual employee engagement survey.

We knew that there had to be a better and more real time way to assess and act upon such an important aspect of everyday business.

For decades, the way to monitor the mood of a company’s workforce. has been the antiquated and universally detested annual employee engagement survey. We knew that there had to be a better way.

So, we developed a cloud-based always-on solution that was built with the employee in mind – providing a platform to let them say what they felt is important to them in their working life and at a time and through a channel that they are used to using.

Q2. Do you focus on a niche within the market or do you serve all businesses?

When we first developed the Thymometrics concept, we did not limit the ideas to just employee engagement feedback. Anywhere you need to assess how people are feeling and how those sentiments change over time, you could use a Thymo survey.

What sets Thymometrics apart is our ability to provide an anonymous communications channel to allow people to express their feelings openly, but also allows managers to reach out to groups of people based on their express or implied feelings, again all anonymously.

This has opened up all manner of insights and opportunities to fully embed the culture of openness and inclusion in any business.

What sets Thymometrics apart is our ability to provide an anonymous communications channel to allow people to express their feelings openly, but also allows managers to reach out to groups of people based on their express or implied feelings, again all anonymously.

Q3. What are some effective ways you have acquired new clients?

To be honest, we’re pushing on an open door!

Almost without exception when we explain what we can reveal about not just employee, but much wider business issues for a small change in approach, we attract a lot of interest.

From managers, HR, internal communications and CEOs, most wonder why they have not switched sooner.

Q4. Any ineffective ways to find new customers? Why didn’t they work so well?

I think just trying to sell a solution to the Human Resources section of a business as an HR solution in isolation without discussing the wider business implications is a mistake. Introducing the concept of saving money on recruitment, retraining, on-boarding, etc gets the attention of a wider audience and makes a good case for HR to bring the whole issue to the Board and the CEO.

Making People Teams look like heroes is a simple by-product of using Thymometrics!

Without doubt, content marketing and our blog has enabled us to build our new brand quickly.

As a disruptive HR Tech start up with no brand recognition to start with and when challenging such embedded traditions as the annual staff survey, we needed a voice to build awareness and trust in the marketplace.

Our blogs are all thought-provoking and designed to give the reader an alternative view and option to what we consider out-dated methodologies.

Q6. Can you share some tips on interesting people, websites, tools, podcasts, or books to check out to help grow a business faster?

I really enjoy reading and watching webinars by the forward-thinking Josh Bersin at Deloittes. Josh’s an HR Tech visionary who’s always one step ahead of where the industry is and never satisfied with the norm.

Dave Ulrich is another person I have a lot of respect for. He deals with how organisations build the capabilities of leadership and talent through the human resources function with an easy-to-understand delivery.

Emma Bridger at PeopleLab is a very knowledgeable professional with a background in psychology. Emma’s book, simply entitled ‘Employee Engagement’ is a great read and resource for practical advice on engagement.

Lastly, I just love Fizz, Pop, Bang as a company! Both founders, Imogen Pudduck & Carla Cringle, have a passion for their customer’s company and their people, inspiring them to do great things.

Conclusion – How To Get More HR Clients

I enjoyed talking with David and learning about the growth at Thymometrics.

If you’d like to get in touch with David, you can find him via the business website here: Thymometrics.